


Goddammit, Kryptaria II, or, A consulting detective on errantry

by RembrandtsWife



Category: Sherlock (TV), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Baltimore, Crossover, Gen, Sharks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you just have to get your feet wet. Unless you're a wizard on errantry, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goddammit, Kryptaria II, or, A consulting detective on errantry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kryptaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/gifts).
  * Inspired by [But the Sharks Are Witnesses!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/447990) by [Kryptaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria). 



> I, um, what? This is kind of an AU of Kryptaria's "But the Sharks Are Witnesses!" and simultaneously an AU of my own story "Goddammit, Kryptaria", in which Sherlock and John visit my hometown. It is also an AU of the show, as it is post-Reichenbach and Sherlock is officially alive again, but there's no Mary, Magnussen, etc. I appear also to have laid the groundwork for a full-blown AU in which Sherlock Holmes is a wizard in the Young Wizards universe and I never thought I would write fanfic for that universe I'm so sorry it's all Kryptaria's fault I swear. *koff*

"What-- f-- wha--"

John sputtered out, reduced to speechlessness. He stood with Sherlock at the top of a long pair of escalators, both stopped at the moment. There was a reason beyond any mechanical malfunction that they were not operating. The reason was a few thousand gallons of water and a half dozen or so sharp, dark grey dorsal fins.

Sharks, Sherlock thought. Of course it had to be sharks.

It was supposed to be a nice quiet holiday across the Pond: Picturesque Baltimore, Maryland, quaint local characters, the Chesapeake Ripper trial, and delicious local seafood. But of course, entropy takes no holidays, and someone had burgled the National Aquarium and smashed its prize multistorey shark tank while a visiting wizard happened to be staying at a waterfront hotel a few blocks distant.

Surely Baltimore, for all that it savored more of small town than most cities its size, had to have wizards of its own? But the message on his Manual had been unequivocal: This was his job.

Sighing, Sherlock brought up his spell menu. He had already deduced everything he could from the scene and come up with nothing useful. He had no choice but to out himself.

"John. No matter what I do, stay within two feet of me. No matter what happens." Sherlock finished updating John's parameters and set the spell to include him: Air bubble, oxygen exchange with the water, and shielding. All right, then. Before John could object, he started down the escalator.

He allowed himself a tiny smile of relief on hearing John's footsteps following him, even as the man protested. Then Sherlock was wading into the cold saline water, his air bubble glowing faintly as it pushed the water away.

He stopped at waist-deep, with John's fingers biting into his shoulder, and bent forward so his voice would resonate into the water. "I am on errantry, and I greet you."

Behind him John gasped. Sherlock's voice using the Speech resonated powerfully in the high open space, even more than it usually did. He waited, watching the fins cut like blades through the water. Seemingly random movements, but in a moment, they were lined up in a semicircle, facing him. Good enough.

"John? Follow me and stay close. Two feet. And don't speak." Without waiting for a reply, Sherlock descended fully into the water.

Even through the air bubble, the water was cold--too cold, he thought, for some of the species housed here. Ahead of him, half a dozen expressionless faces gazed on him with unreflecting eyes and slowly grinding jaws.

"Cousins," he said, nodding.

"Wizard," one of the sharks said. He wasn't sure which had spoken; its voice had the characteristic dry, whispery timbre, something heard but not felt, that made it so unnerving to speak with sharks.

"Cousins, I may not be able to repair this habitat for you, but I will re-heat the water to an agreeable temperature, and if possible, I will bring to justice whoever did this. Tell me what you know."

"Justice?" That was a different shark, he thought. "Your idea of justice, human, is different from ours."

John was twitching at his back. "If the culprit is human, then human justice has jurisdiction," Sherlock said. Firmly, he hoped, though he'd just as soon throw whoever it was to the offended sharks. "What did you see? When and how did this happen?"

One shark broke ranks and swam in a swift ellipse around the others. It drew up again closer to Sherlock, dark eyes rolling from him to John and back again. "Who is the one with you who does not speak? His distress is loud in the water." The shark showed its teeth, then closed its mouth almost primly.

"He is my friend and trustworthy. His distress is my responsibility, not yours." In that utterance there was no doubt whatsoever.

"Heat the water, then," said the speaker shark, "and we will talk. Some of us are perishing, and it is necessary for us all to live together."

The sharks were not the only inhabitants of the great tank; there were several species of rays as well, some of which had gathered within hearing of Sherlock's discussion with the sharks. It took only a minute for Sherlock to calculate the proper temperature on his Manual and then recite it.

A smothered exclamation from John as the water that wasn't drowning or even touching them grew warm. The speaker shark performed a tight circle in place.

"Our thanks, cousin. The ones who destroyed the tank were humans who wished to free us from captivity. They planned poorly, having no way of loosing us from the building once the tank had been smashed. Two of them paid the price of causing us distress. Eight others escaped. They also destroyed some of the cameras, but not all; their images may have been remembered."

"Thank you, cousins, that should do." Sherlock paused. "Do you wish to be freed from this place, then? I can help you if you wish."

The sharks all together made a noise that sounded disturbingly like a sigh. "No," said the speaker shark. "The local waters are no better a place for us than here. Perhaps our lives here can be useful." Another unmistakable, terrifying smile. "But the fresh meat was most enjoyable."

"Very well, cousins. Dai'stiho." Sherlock turned around, coming face to face with a frozen and white-faced John Watson. "Up, John." He pointed. "Back up the escalator, nice easy pace." He realized belatedly that he had used the Speech, not English, but John obeyed nonetheless.

John waited until they were out of the water, out of the spell bubble, and out of the building, having talked to the police and the aquarium management, before he took Sherlock by the arm and said, "What. The hell, Was that."

"Can it wait till we get back to the ho--"

"No."

Sighing, Sherlock turned up the collar of his jacket and said, "Let's walk, then." After a moment, John's grip loosened, and by silent agreement they headed for the waterfront.

"I'm a wizard, John."

"Stop messing me about, Sherlock. You're not Harry bloody Potter."

"No, and neither is any other wizard I know." Sherlock huffed. "I am… on the side of the angels, you might say." He hid his smile behind his coat collar, savoring the bitter memory of that rooftop confrontation. "I was nearly thirteen, a little late for it, when I discovered a book in my maternal grandfather's library. His name was Sherlock, too. It was an old leatherbound volume entitled 'A True and Accurate Relation of the Proportions of All the Arts and Sciences'. But when I opened it, it offered me an Oath to take." Despite himself, the warmth came into his voice. "An Oath to--to help living creatures. To slow down the heat-death of the universe. An offer of great knowledge and power, in exchange for the obligation to use those assets to help others and not to harm." He looked out over the water. A small sailing ship glided out toward the harbour mouth; nearer to the shore, people in paddle-boats, some shaped like "Loch Ness monsters", plied the waters.

"I stood in my grandfather's library, looking out of the window at an early spring snow, and I recited the words of the Oath. And then, I was a wizard."

John was silent for a few minutes. "What happened then?"

Sherlock bit his lip. "Carl Powers happened. There are… there are things about that case I'm not sure I can tell you, but I can tell you this: Every wizard, every person who accepts the Oath, undergoes an Ordeal. It tests your abilities, it tests your commitment, and it pits you against the only enemy a wizard has." Sherlock stopped, searching John's face. Yes, John believed him--because it was Sherlock talking; if it were anyone else, well, he might be calling the nearest psychiatric hospital.

"He has a lot of names, but the one that most species have in common is the Lone Power. The being that turned its back on the other Powers That Be, that invented entropy, and death. The one who stands in the way of every species, every individual, that wants to become its true self, its best self. The Lone Power was behind Carl Powers' murder." Sherlock licked his lips, willing himself to meet John's eyes. Willing John to understand. "Wizards fight against the Lone Power, but sometimes individuals… cooperate with him. Collaborate willingly, and there's less and less of you, more and more of it…."

John's eyes were confused, desperate. How could Sherlock tell him that he had looked into Jim Moriarty's face and seen the One who wanted to blight the whole universe laughing back at him? The Lone Power had used up Moriarty, then created a simulacrum of him when that served Its purpose. How could he make John understand any of this?

"You must think I'm mad," Sherlock muttered, and set off walking twice as fast as before. Once again, though, that small hard hand with its iron grip seized his arm and detained him.

"I would," John said, "if I hadn't followed you into a pool full of sharks and heard you talk to them. And they *answered* you. Fucking sharks, Sherlock!"

"It's the Speech. The primal language, the language that most accurately describes reality. Everything understands it, even things we don't think of as sentient." He laughed. "The lockpicks are mostly for show: I can talk my way through locked doors, with the Speech. If I'm on errantry, that is, if I'm working as a wizard."

"So you're a… consulting detective wizard? Or wizard detective?" John was almost smiling now.

"I do deduce things rationally, by inference. I was learning how to do that before I was offered the Oath. But the wizardry is a help. And I do jobs that don't involve detection but do involve wizardry, which you don't know about. Or didn't, until now." He shot John a sidelong glance.

John was mulling all this over. His bizarre but unfailing instinct to trust Sherlock Holmes was probably going to win out here. It would be a relief not to conceal the full scope of his Work from his friend flatmate any more; it might also be possible to have John as back-up on some of his specifically wizardly cases. 

"A wizard. Magic. Well, that certainly casts a different light on things." John looked up at Sherlock and punched him in the arm. "God, I'm famished all of a sudden. Where can a man get some decent chips in this town?"

Sherlock grinned. "Let me check my Manual," he said, and pulled out his iPhone with a flourish. Maybe now John would notice that the Apple on its back had no bite missing.


End file.
